B Model Car Hauler

[LocomotiveBreath]

I really like those taillights too. That is a good idea to use the exhaust pipe as the light housing. I've been debating on what I wanted to do for taillights myself. Keep up the good work.

[Greg Rider]

The DT466 is one of the best engines that IH ever built . It is probably 250 to 275 hp. They built millions of them and parts are easy to get. I drove a 24' box truck with a DT466 with a 5sp & 2sp rear. I drove 'er like a 7 speed . The "13 letter manure spreader" company did it right with that engine.

[Freightrain]

Nice work so far! Really like the overal look of that bed. The tail lights look great! Very custom, but looks period correct too. Can't wait to see it done(bet you can't either).

[phantom309]

The box is starting to come together.

We got the rear bumper from the school bus that we're using for parts. It was too wide so we shortened it down and then we added a recess for the license plate.

The bumper's just propped up in place right now because we've still got some work to do on it but I think it's going to look pretty good when it's done.

Jim

[LocomotiveBreath]

Looking good. The rear fenders finally came in last week for my truck so I'll be able to start fabbing up the bed soon myself.

[phantom309]

Looking good. The rear fenders finally came in last week for my truck so I'll be able to start fabbing up the bed soon myself.

I'll be interested to see how it comes comes out. Are you going with flat deck or will it be some kind of box? I was also wondering what fenders you're using?

When we first started looking for a B model we were just looking for a tractor and I thought we'd either have to make some rear fenders out of fiberglass or modify a set of reproduction pickup fenders.

Jim

[LocomotiveBreath]

I did this amateur photoshop awhile back of how the bed will look when finished, except I plan to keep it Mack green. The fenders I have are like the ones pictured.

[phantom309]

I did this amateur photoshop awhile back of how the bed will look when finished, except I plan to keep it Mack green. The fenders I have are like the ones pictured.

That would look terrific!!! Those fenders should look really good.

Jim

[phantom309]

We got a little more done this week. The box is coming along and we're fitting the running boards.

The rear of the fender used to go to a running board but it wouldn't have looked right with the narrow bumper so we made a little brace that will also work as a step once we add a little checker plate.

We re-used the old running boards, we just had to cut them down a bit.

And of course, I had to get Winston the Bulldog into the picture.

[SD40T2]

cool project!! always thought about doing something like that to pull 5th wheel camper.can't wait to see finished!!!

[phantom309]

We built a sunvisor.

I'm pretty happy with the way it looks but it was more work than I expected. There was a lot of trial and error involved with getting it to fit properly.

We've got the new exhaust pipes standing in place but we're waiting for the shields to come in before we actually mount them.

We're almost finished with all the mock up, pretty soon we'll be pulling the cab off.

Jim

[Mike]

Hey Jim,

What would look tuff is..... for the pipes to come down the sides like the old what we used to call ( Lake Pipes ) in front of the back wheels. Just my rememberence of the 50's look.

mike

[phantom309]

Hey Jim,

What would look tuff is..... for the pipes to come down the sides like the old what we used to call ( Lake Pipes ) in front of the back wheels. Just my rememberence of the 50's look.

mike

Mike, We thought seriously about doing that. We've got a set of side pipes for the race car and since we're going to paint the Mack to match the car the side pipes would have looked good. But the truck already had running boards and I think the International diesel might smoke a little once we get through adjusting the fuel pump. I think the vertical stacks will look good when the truck is hooked to the trailer.

We actually welded the hose holder trays that came with the truck into the front corners of the box so there would be room for the exhaust.

[vanscottbuilders]

Jim,

Wouild consider building more sunvisors?

That one looks great.

Might provide a little revenue to supplement

your project.

I know I'd take one if they can be done reasonably.

Paul Van Scott

[LocomotiveBreath]

Lookin good, I might be interested in a visor as well. What did you make it out of?

[phantom309]

Paul, I don't think we'll be making any more sunvisors. I'd like to say it's really simple to build one but it's actually pretty time consuming. The design is simple enough but here's a lot of trial and error involved trying to get it to fit and look right.

My first plan was to make a more peaked, Peterbilt style, visor but when we mocked one up we just couldn't get it to look right so we ended up just going with a curved visor. We would have preferred to make it out of stainless steel but settled for aluminum because it was a lot cheaper and easier to work with.

I think anyone could make one, it's just time consuming. I'm happy with the way it looks but I also think one of the Lund style visors would have looked good.

I'll try to attach a larger picture, as you can see it's really a pretty simple design.

Jim

Edited February 23, 2009 by phantom309

[vanscottbuilders]

Jim,

Obviously you have a real eye for the right details.

The tailights look great, the box looks great, and now the

visor looks like it belongs too.

The curved style fits the cab real well.

Any info on making one would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Paul Van Scott

[peterj]

paul, you might check out BIGJIMS.net...he has reproduction sun vizors for old cars... you'd have to measeure and call to see what he has...

[Freightrain]

LOVE the visor. I've had visions of something similiar to that also. It comes to mind the version they have in Austrailia and I think Barry was trying to work on getting some over here. Been some time and not sure it will happen. The Lund version is just too late model and takes away from the roundness of a B model(in my eyes).

I figure some thick cardboard and sissors and lots of mock up I could come up with something close. Polished stainless would be the catseyes, but be very difficult to get curved properly.

If you go back to the pics of the B I posted earlier showing a similar bed, he had drag pipes on it. I'm kinda a tall pipes kinda guy, though if you have a white trailer............beware. It will be soot city. Maybe not as bad as the old Mack motor(mine really spits moisture/oil) but with a black trailer it's livable. Make sure the top of the pipes clear the top of trailer some to help keep it above the wind pattern hitting front of trailer. Mine used to be about 11" taller, but had to crop them to fit truck into garage. It definitely makes more mess on the trailer then before.

[phantom309]

The pipes will be a little higher than the trailer when we're done so I'm hoping it will stay reasonably clean.

We pretty much did what you described, cardboard and sissors.

It's a lot easier if you've got a second person to help.

I made the brackets that hold it onto the roof a little too low so I used some strips of teflon as spacers. You don't really notice it unless you look carefully.

Now that we've got all the holes drilled for the visor and air horns etc. we've started dismantling everything. I took some close up photos of the visor and brackets but I forgot to bring the camera home. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

Jim

[Freightrain]

Just happen to be looking at "Gasser" magazine over the weekend at buddy's machine shop. Had a couple good shots of your car in it. Unfortunately they don't list names or information for any of the pictures. Very good action shots though.

[phantom309]

Gasser Magazine sponsors the Gasser Reunion at Thompson OH. The pictures are probably from last years race. This year there's also going to be a whole bunch of 409 powered cars racing so I pretty well HAVE TO make it there. I'd have loved to have the Mack going by then but there's no way we'll have it done in time. In fact we just lifted the cab off today and it's really starting to sink in that this will be a pretty big job.

I took some close up pictures of the sunvisor and brackets. We just used small screws to attach everything to the roof for now but we will use different fasteners when we actually install it.

[Freightrain]

I'd love to make the Gasser show, maybe this year?

Since you're still taking things apart........I bet it really looks intimidating. I know how that goes!

Awesome job on the visor and the mounts. The roof pieces look premade from something else(stainless steel?)? The adjustable part looks like aluminum and likely you made? You did the exact thing I've had floating in my head for years now. I wondered about supporting the visor in the middle, but with the roof brackets that is eliminated.

Does the visor screw directly into the cab roof on the ends? Or is there a bracket under there?

[phantom309]

Larry, I didn't see your last post. Yes the visor is screwed directly to the roof at the ends. The screws are just temporary, I've ordered some steel threaded inserts that sort of rivet into the roof. That will allow us to use 1/4" bolts. We've got some of those inserts made out of aluminum but they're not very strong.

We made the part of the bracket that mounts to the roof out of stainless steel. I find stainless kind of hard to work with but I find it even harder to weld aluminum, so it's kind of the lessor of the two evils. We'll polish up the aluminum and stainless before we do the final installation.

We haven't had much to post in the last couple of weeks but we're continuing to make progress. We pulled the engine and transmission out of the bus that we're using as a donor truck. The engine, an International DT466, was painted a shade of blue that would have clashed with the color that we're painting the truck so we painted it Caterpillar yellow. The transmission is an Allison automatic.

[Terry T]

The engine, an International DT466, was painted a shade of blue that would have clashed with the color that we're painting the truck so we painted it Caterpillar yellow.

Your flirtin' with disaster paintin' it Cat yellow!!! A few years back when Shawn and I were putting together the engine for the motorhome, Genie came down and decided to paint the engine for his street stock that was setting in Shawns garage, grabbed a can of Cat yellow and said this will work, I looked at him and said I wouldn't paint it Cat yellow unless you don't want to finish the 1st race of the season. Guess what, he exploded the left side of the engine right off 10 laps into the 1st race!!! I have never seen an engine do that, other than top fuel stuff. We of course, to this day, blame the Cat yellow.